opens VIFF

Vancouver: It’s a double-header for Whale Music. The first interprovincial coproduction between b.c. and Ontario will open the 13th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, three weeks after it kicks off the Toronto International Film Festival.

Directed by Richard Lewis and filmed in Vancouver, Whale Music is based on Paul Quarrington’s award-winning novel of the same name about a washed-up rock star on a quest for redemption through love and music.

‘We’re delighted to again open the festival with a film that was shot here and has strong West Coast ties,’ says viff festival director Alan Franey. ‘We cannot overstate the importance of Western Canadian films to the festival…we feel very strongly that the development of the indigenous industry is tied to the support it receives from the festival.

Now ranked as the third largest film festival in North America, viff, which runs Sept. 30-Oct. 16, will screen over 250 films from 40 different countries.

Three other locally produced feature films will also be celebrated with gala screenings as part of the Canadian Images series: Mina Shum’s Double Happiness, Charles Wilkinson’s Max and Kathy Garneau’s Tokyo Cowboy.

Famed Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski will make a rare appearance outside of Europe to attend the gala for his new film Red (Trois Couleurs – Rouge), the final film in his award-winning Three Colours trilogy.

viff programmer Tony Rayns has expanded the Eastern Asian component of the festival, Dragons and Tigers to include 45 films from Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.

Two new series have been added to the lineup: Russia In The 90s, featuring films both from and about Russia, and Faultlines, a program of non-fiction features of 1994.

Returning series include: Canadian Images, The Best of Britain, Cinema of our Time, and Walk on the Wild Side.

l.a.-based entertainment lawyer Peter Dekom will be the hot luncheon ticket at the festival’s annual Trade Forum, running Oct. 6-8 at the Hotel Vancouver. Dekom’s firm, Bloom, Dekom, Hergott and Cook, handles the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, Sylvester Stallone, George Lucas and Ivan Reitman. Dekom specializes in financing and structuring motion picture and tv deals.

British producer Richard Goodwin (Passage To India) will give the Trade Forum’s keynote address and participate in a panel entitled ‘How The Brits Do It’. Other British producers on the panel include The Crying Game’s Nik Powell, My Beautiful Laundrette’s Sarah Radclyffe, The Commitments’ Linda Myles and Eric Fellner, producer of Four Weddings and A Funeral.

Trade Forum producer Melanie Friesen says other high-profile guests include The Little Rascals director Penelope Spheeris and Claudio Luca, producer of the award-winning tv drama, The Boys Of St. Vincent.